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Two Megaupload execs bailed

No net for Batato or van der Kolk

Two of the Megaupload executives arrested in last week’s raid on the company in New Zealand have been granted bail. Bram van der Kolk and Finn Batato will have to submit to strict bail conditions including electronic monitoring.

The two, who won’t be released until police check their bail addresses, have also been banned from using the Internet while on bail.

The bail hearing for another member of the so-called “Megaupload conspiracy”, Mathias Ortman, is continuing.

Meanwhile, Kim Dotcom is appealing the decision in which he was denied bail as a flight risk, with his lawyer to argue that with his assets frozen and his family in New Zealand, the Megaupload chief has neither the means nor the motivation to leave the country. His lawyer is also drawing attention to Dotcom’s hypertension and diabetes.

According to Stuff.co.nz, authorities aren’t the only ones concerned that Dotcom might ‘take the money and run’. During the bail hearings, it reports that Skype conversations used as evidence suggested that van der Kolk and Ortman feared being left out in the cold if “the s...t really hits the fan”.

It’s not apparent to The Register whether the conversations were obtained by interception, or whether they were recorded by one of the parties and found on computers seized during last week’s raid.

According to Reuters, the US has 45 days from the date of arrest to lodge its extradition application. It can only secure an extradition if it can demonstrate that the alleged offences would attract at least 12 months’ jail in New Zealand.

Yet another, more peripheral, associate of Dotcom has found himself in hot water, with the security guard who apparently owned the shotgun found “near” dotcom in the raids facing firearms charges in New Zealand.

The weapon, described by the New Zealand Herald as a “semi-automatic shotgun”, was apparently owned by “A-list” security guard Wayne Tempero, who has claimed David Beckham and the royal family of Brunei among his clients.